JMM (S) office secretary Shailendra Bhattacharya, central committee member Nand Kishore Mehta and Ajay Mehta taken on a seven-day transit remand by the CBI will be produced before the chief metropolitan magistrate, New Delhi, on August 19.

The agency team from Delhi had produced the three before the chief judicial magistrate on Thursday.

The CBI in its petition to the CJM said that it had information that Jha, shortly before his abduction from New Delhi, was last seen at the Pisca Nagri residence of Nand Kishore Mehta.

The petition said the CBI also had information that Nand Kishore Mehta, brother Ajay Mehta and some of their friends had buried a body at the exact spot from where theskeleton was recovered.

``Though the skeleton can be identified after a DNA test at Hyderabad, the post mortem report revealed that it belonged to a male who had been killed four years ago,'' a top CBI source said. Jha has been missing since May 22, 1994.

In order to substantiate its murder theory, the CBI said the inference was drawn from the fact that there were injury marks on the skull and left leg of the skeleton.

When contacted the arrested JMM (S) leaders alleged that they had been arrested as part of ``a conspiracy hatched by Congress leader Subodh Kant Sahai''.

The nine-member Delhi CBI team looking into the case included Ashok Kumar (DIG), A K Gupta (SP) and Vino Pandey (inspector).

The CBI in its petition to the chief judicial magistrate for taking the three arrested leaders on transit remand, said it had received information in the course of investigations that Jha was last seen at the Pisca Nagri residence of one of the arrested leaders, Nand Kishore Mehta, shortly after his abductionfrom New Delhi.

JMM (S) chief Shibu Soren arrested by the CBI in connection with the Jha abduction case on May 21 this year is out on bail.